Greenhouses 1979

Editor: We're looking at "Greenhouses," a 1979 acrylic on canvas by Oleksandr Aksinin. The vibrant blue backdrop and stark geometric shapes give it this surreal, almost dreamlike quality, but a slightly unsettling one. What do you make of it? Curator: Unsettling is spot on! I think it invites us to question what's being cultivated in these greenhouses, metaphorically speaking. Is it growth, or something more controlled, even unnatural? Look at the juxtaposition of the organic bulb-like shapes – a fruit, almost – rising from these rigid, box-like structures on green coiled springs. Editor: It's that contrast that grabs me. Those boxy shapes could almost be a brutalist architectural plan. Curator: Exactly! Aksinin, working during a period of Soviet influence, often used these kinds of geometric structures. They can represent the sterile uniformity imposed on individual expression. Perhaps these bulbous things emerging are artistic inspiration fighting against the odds, maybe a way of asking how nature could challenge or perhaps be warped by architecture. What do you think about those lines, at the bottom, appearing to stretch all the way down? Editor: They feel…confining? Like something's tethered, but in a beautiful space. The green springs add this touch of humor, this kind of visual bounce that lightens the density of the lower blocks. It has its own freedom. Curator: Yes! That tension is where the magic happens. It makes you consider whether control and nature can ever truly coexist. Are the greenhouses enabling growth or stifling it? A tough question indeed. And I wonder what secrets are to be uncovered within those buildings. It all seems… precarious. Editor: I hadn’t thought of it that way before. This painting suddenly has so much more to say than initially meets the eye. Curator: Isn't it fascinating? These echoes of controlled, cultivated growth. A really strange work when you come to think of it. I may never see architecture and spring toys the same again.